Convicted Drug Lords to serve “Alcatraz” type prison

Two convicted drug lords named by President Rodrigo Duterte; Herbert Colangco and Peter Co that are currently staying at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP), may soon serve in a maximum security island prison that was eyed by Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.

“In the long run, we are also contemplating of even transferring them to Caballo island or to an island in Palawan,” Aguirre said in a press briefing in the Palace.

President Duterte also expressed his intention to build an Alcatraz-type prison for convicted high-profile prisoners such as drug traffickers and hardened criminals.

“We should have our own Alcatraz where prison rules and regulations are applied to the fullest so that criminals will understand that in the Philippines crime does not pay,” Duterte said as posted by Rachfeed.

Caballo Island off Manila Bay and another unnamed island in Palawan were considered for the location of the detention facility. Caballo is an island beside Corregidor served as the quarantine facility for Filipino peacekeepers from Ebola-hit Liberia in 2014. It was then occupied by the Philippine Navy.

Credit: CORREGIDOR.ORG

Aguirre expresses belief that confining the drug lords in remote island without cellular phone signals could prevent them form having transactions.

President Duterte also named a certain Peter Lim aside from Colangco and Co, who also allegedly leading the illegal trade in the Visayas, as one of the top drug lords in the country, and is believed to be outside the country.

President Duterte cited about an Alcatraz-type of prison, where the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary or the United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island (often referred to as Alcatraz), was a maximum high-security federal prison off the coast of San Francisco, California, USA operated from 1934 to 1963.